PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 07 June 2020

“Subjected to Relentless and Grueling Cross-Examination”

Susanne M. Klausen

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199844494.003.0006

This chapter examines the second trial, held a few months after the first, at which Dr. Derk Crichton was again prosecuted for procuring illegal abortions. This time he was prosecuted alongside another doctor, Dr. Angini Maharaj, with whom he worked at the King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban. The chapter argues that Crichton, an eminent member of the medical profession, was prosecuted twice in order to maximize his usefulness as an object lesson for other doctors providing abortions to white teenagers. Ultimately both doctors were found guilty, struck off the medical roll, and forced to leave South Africa to obtain employment. The second trial kept the issue of clandestine abortion on the front pages of newspapers for another few months, and the constant reporting and ongoing public shaming of young white women reminded other young women that they, too, risked exposure and humiliation if they tried to procure abortions.

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 07 June 2020